Introducing Freshman Republican Members

Floor Speech

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Mr. MILLS. Madam Speaker, today, I want to introduce myself not just to the great people of Florida's Seventh District but to the rest of America.

While I may not be in your district and your exact Representative, if you believe in our constitutionality, if you believe in the rights, liberties, and freedoms in which American exceptionalism once excelled in, then I will be your Representative.

I came from a very humble upbringing. I grew up in a small town called Auburndale, Florida, in central Florida.

My mother and father both suffered from drug and substance issues. They were in and out of prison nearly all of my life--my father spent nearly 30 years, my mother spent nearly 7 years. I bounced house to house until I was finally adopted and taken in by my grandparents.

That is a very humbling experience for me, not just because so many Americans today are suffering from these things, but to also understand that I can hear your plight. Also, I understand the significant importance of being a nuclear family member.

My grandparents didn't have much. My grandfather was a welder, my grandmother used to do hair on the back patio for women in the community. We lived on very little after my grandfather's disability. But the one thing that we always had was our love, our faith, and this Nation.

I went on to serve in the 82nd Airborne and as a member of the Joint Special Operations Command, to serve honorably in our Armed Forces, and to be a Bronze Star recipient.

My socioeconomic status and how I was born into what family did not define who I am. That is something very rare in this world. That is something that only exists here in America.

I have been honored and blessed to create tremendous businesses with my wife, where we have gone on to serve over 200 of our law enforcement departments: SRT, HRT, the FDLE, the Department of Corrections, as well as for our members of the Armed Forces. In my family, we truly believe in the ideas of defend, not defund our men and women in blue, and that matters to us.

I would just add that as I stand here, willing to serve yet again in a new uniform, I want you to know that accountability, transparency, and accessibility to your Members should be a top priority. That also means accountability for the wrongdoings of our Federal Government, whether it is the overstepping of State's rights and individual rights and the violations of the 10th amendment, or whether it is getting accountability for the wrongdoings of open borders, a failed Afghan withdrawal, and the America-last policies that have threatened our energy independence.

Madam Speaker, I know something about these failed withdrawals. When Congressman Ronny Jackson from Texas reached out to me, he had a mother, Miriam, with three children, a 15-year-old boy, an 11-year-old little girl, and a 2-year-old little girl. They were left behind in Afghanistan after the Biden administration chose to abandon Bagram Air Base to hand over to the Chinese, that enabled over 40,000 Taliban, Haqqani, and ISIS Khorasan to be released from their detention centers, but it also shut down the commercial flights that many Americans had planned on using to return home.

This mother and her three children only wanted to do one thing, return back home to America. When Ronny Jackson called the Department of Defense and the Department of State under this Biden administration, they failed to answer the call.

That is why when he called me, we put together a great team that went over, and after 11 days and three failed attempts, the Biden administration not only threatened to shoot down an aircraft of Americans, which was a November aircraft that was there to save other Americans, but he thwarted us in three other efforts.

The great thing about America is that we are not defined by the minority, which is our Federal Government. We are defined by the voice of the American people, which is the majority that cannot be silenced. That is why after 11 days, multiple attempts, and crossing into impermissible environments, we were able to rescue and conduct the very first successful overland rescue of Americans out of Afghanistan and return that mother and her three children back and they finished out their school year.

Madam Speaker, the one thing I believe in is action. While I take this time to speak before you today, I want you to know that that is not what the American people are about--politicians speaking, but acting.

When it came to the 2020 riots, we didn't sit back and ask to defend and dismantle our law enforcement. My wife and I, we stood strong as we donated hundreds of thousands of dollars and less lethal goods to defend our law enforcement, our communities, their businesses, and their homes.

If I have learned nothing in my time in the military as a combat veteran, as a businessowner, as a foreign policy expert, and as an American, it is that it is time for action.

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